


GORE AND GHOSTS

by 01nm



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Body Horror, Dissociation, Drowning, Ecto-gore, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, Horror, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Violence, aka there's a lot of worldbuilding for a gorefic, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:45:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/01nm/pseuds/01nm
Summary: Snippets of ecto-flesh and green blood.





	1. Portal Death

**Author's Note:**

> Contains mature content of a teenage and older character being seriously injured. Strong emphasis on gore, body horror, violence, injuries, and general horror themes.
> 
>  
> 
> **YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A classic scene: Danny's death in the portal - now with more gore! And also dissociative flashbacks.

 

Danny steps cautiously into the machine, his two friends crowding around the entrance with curiosity in their eyes. He carefully avoids the extremely thick and numerous wires lounging about the floor as he moves closer to the two buttons, heedful of his treacherous position.

 

Unease and generally bad, unlucky sensations prickle his neck. The 'ON' and 'OFF' buttons are audibly buzzing with copious amounts of electricity. In fact, the entire _machine_ is charged with electricity, sparks raining down like some kind of gaping maw of thunder.  The very air itself moves with Danny, fuzzing his skin and senses.

 

"Guys," he calls back weakly, "I think this thing is too charged up. I might cause it to explode if I try to re-direct the energy right now."

 

He turns around and sees that Sam and Tucker's faces aren't so blasé anymore, and are showing traces of worry. They both nod their heads hurriedly and motion for Danny to come back to the marginal safety of the open lab.

 

Danny shivers and jerks slightly. The pure electrical energy of the machine is frying his nerves (or is it ecto-energy? Oh, god, don't think about it, don't think-)

 

He trips over a wire, hand automatically shooting out to grab the wall.

 

He hears a click. A damning sound. Sam and Tucker's faces are the last thing Danny sees before a whine of energy and a sound like standing right next to a jet plane cuts his senses off with a blinding light.

 

Burning, itching, spasming chaos is wrought through the ephemeral body of flesh standing in the way of a spacial hole being ripped into another dimension.

 

His eyes pop out and roll onto the floor with the force that hits his head, swallowed by the all-encompassing light. His back blisters off layer by layer and exposes his sizzling fat, his curling muscles, his boiling organs. Lungs and a stomach fill with blood and ectoplasm and fear before bursting into the light. Two legs, two arms, one heart doesn't exist anymore, eaten in one gulping glow.

 

Something inside of the metaphorical body trapped between two worlds shifts and changes, locking into place with glowing green finality.

 

Danny screams with air from Schrödinger's lungs.

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

" _I'm gonna be an astronaut, mama!" Little Daniel Fenton reaches out grubby paws to his mother's clean dress, grabbing ahold and hanging on tight, "I just know it! Mrs. Gerber said we could go to the planetarium for a field trip next month!"_

 

_Maddie Fenton ruffles her son's curly black hair with a kind disposition. "That is a very prestigious job, you know. You're going to have to work hard to make it to the stars one day, Daniel."_

 

_Daniel nods seriously, baby blue eyes full of a blossoming light that would be snuffed out in the years to come._

 

_He would give anything to reach the stars and the moon._

 

_Anything in his life._

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

Danny aborts the movement to fill his chest with air as he turns his eyes skyward to the perfectly dark sky. He's out of the city of Amity Park and in an open field – he can tell by the lack of light pollution. He doesn't really care where he is, though. He just cares that he can see what appears to be every single star in the northern hemisphere.

 

It is like a dream.

 

"Little Dipper," he says with a mouth that doesn't move, eyes he can't feel finding the constellation with pinpoint and trained accuracy. "Big Dipper."

 

He feels the need to scrub a hand through hair that _should be_ ruffling with the wind right now, but none of his limbs respond.

 

 _That's odd_ , his mind says distractedly, _maybe I got a haircut?_

 

"Orion's Belt."

 

_Why can't I move?_

 

"Ursa Minor."

 

_Where are my hands?_

 

"Draco."

 

_Where are my lungs?_

 

"…Cassiopeia"

 

_I can't feel my body._

 

"A… A-andromeda."

 

_I can't feel my body._

 

"Peg… pega…sssss…"

 

_I can't feel my body!_

 

"… …"

 

Danny can't breathe.

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

Danny _breathes_ and opens his eyes, bodily functions slowly coming back online one by one.  Some are challenged, others click together like they never left.

 

First he sees a blurry picture of flashing red lights and two familiar faces leaning over him. Then he hears a thumping sound in his ears ( _my ears my eyes all gone all gone_ , his mind is screaming but he can't tell why so he ignores it, ignores the sensation of not being able to _feel_ ) that must be his blood pumping overtime, then his hearing comes back with a really loud annoying noise that sounds like the lab alarms. And that's weird, because didn't he leave his two untrained friends down in the lab for some reason?

 

Next he feels his mouth, his jaw, his tongue, his neck, his chest (it feels different, it feels funny, it feels _good_ ) his stomach (empty; he must've thrown up) his hips and legs and…

 

"Ugh… my head." His splitting headache.

 

Gasping, "Danny? Danny?" Nothing else.

 

"W-wha… Wha's goin' on?" He tries, mouth feeling like cotton. He sits up and gives a sweep of the floor to make sure he didn't land in his own vomit. Somehow, there is nothing. His mind glasses over. "What did you guys touch? Why are the alarms going off? And for god's sake, _where_ _are your hazmat suits?_ "

 

He looks at Tucker, then at Sam. Their faces are both stuck in horror and paleness that Danny has never seen them look like before. Sam is suddenly fumbling with one of their pockets while Tucker slowly raises a hand to brush softly against Danny's cheek.

 

"Danny…?" He says tentatively, like a miracle had just happened and he still couldn't believe it.

 

Danny makes a face and draws away, unsettled by the physical affection and awed look. "What? Did something happen?"

 

A compact mirror is shoved in his face by a hand with painted black nails. He scoffs and takes it, thinking that maybe another ecto-sample had clung to his head and made his hair green again. He'd have to explain to his two shell-shocked friends that it was a normal event, nothing to worry about...

 

Instead he stares, uncomprehendingly, at the boy with the tan skin luminescent like a halo, green constellations where his freckles should be, and flowing white hair in the tiny mirror.

 

The boy stares back, blinking two glowing green eyes.

 


	2. Baby's first ghost attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny accidentally activates his new ghost powers, drops himself down into the lab, and meets an unfriendly ghost come to visit via the open ghost portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Mild injuries including graphic depictions of being cut by glass and being thrown around by the hair and limbs. Mild amount of blood and brutality.

 

Danny shows his current frustration by tossing his cell phone off the side of his bed. It hits carpet with a dull _thunk_ , bounces once, then lies pitifully still the way any respectable inanimate object would.

 

It then dies with a whiney hiss. Because he never charges the damn thing.

 

Unfortunately, his hot date with his bed just isn't happening that night. He is spurned into temporary action by his bladder, unwilling to do something so degrading as piss himself because he was too wrapped up in bedsheets.

 

 _There is just some point that a tired, depressed boy has to give in to the wills of his body_ , Danny narrates as he heaves himself up.

 

He tiptoes to the shared second floor bathroom, shutting the door as quietly as he possibly can while still half-asleep. Unfortunately, peeing isn't one of those things that can be conveniently silenced, so it's all moot point anyways.

 

As he debates the pros and cons of flushing the toilet in his head ( _this is gonna be loud as hell_ vs. _yeah, but at least Jazz won't yell at me in the morning for leaving a 'mess' in the toilet_ ) he absentmindedly turns towards the mirror above the sink.

 

A boy with white hair and glowing green eyes stares back.

 

Danny practically throws himself into the wall trying to banish the image as quickly as possible. When he shakily re-opens his eyes, his normal, blue-eyed, black-haired self gives its doppelganger a frightened once-over.

 

He lets out a shaky breath, and even giggles a little in hysteria. His breath fogs up the mirror in a strange pattern, but he thoughtlessly wipes it away and opens the bathroom door.

 

 _Nothing to see here, folks_ , he concocts out of derangement, _move along, now, or pay the full price._

 

Even if he _was_ going to flush the toilet, he forgets to, turning off the lights as he walks blindly back out into the hallway.

 

He takes a curious look down the stairs, and freezes. It's nothing big, just… The lab door seems to be open and emitting a roving green light. (Or, he's pretty sure the lab door is open. What else could that light be?) That doesn't happen very often. Maybe it'll be happening more from now on, though, considering the ghost portal actually works. Or, at the very least, is ON and filtering electricity to some capacity. He should know - he was the chronic dumbass that pressed the button.

 

 _Yeah._ He breathes alarmingly icy air that burns his throat all the way to his stomach. It makes him think of those times when he'd be sick and his mom would bring him hot soup and cold water. Drinking the soup followed by the water felt like pouring dry ice on a fire. _That's it._ _Nothing weirder than usual here. Nope._

 

 _Not like an_ actual _ghost is gonna come out or anything._

 

The hand on his shoulder gives a comforting squeeze.

 

He shouts hoarsely and spins around, arms flying out as if in defense. There's nothing there but darkness and echoes of his own short-lived voice.

 

 _This isn't real_ , he dissociates _, Not right now it isn't. It can't be. I'm going insane. This part isn't_ real. _  
_

 

And then he's unexpectedly falling _through_ the floor. Cue another strained shout of surprise. He closes his eyes and pretends he didn't just see the first floor kitchen whiz past his head.

 

He lands heavily on his butt in what his mind identifies as the second level of the lab. A whimper of absolute terror is dragged unwillingly from his throat as he freezes on the ground, uncaring of his bruised behind.

 

The open ghost portal swirls, green and foreboding. He swears he can hear the whispers of the electricity and ectoplasm call his name. _You're dead_ , it susurrus, _you're dead._

 

_Ghost boy._

 

Danny screams out his small lungful of air and desperately pulls himself backwards towards the heavy door closing him in from the first level. Someone- _something_ rubs through his hair, catching on every knot and gripping with a bruising, formless hand, dragging him towards the portal by an invisible force.

 

At first, he barely makes any move to stop this, too disbelieving in the way his legs drag stiffly across the floor in front of him as his body is dragged backwards by the hair at such a slow pace that it's almost unnoticeable.

 

What is going on? _What is going on!?_

 

But then his everything is drenched in harsh reality when _something_ tugs so hard at his hair that several strands are yanked out, and his head is snapped to the side in a way that wretches his neck and also smacks his temple against the floor.

 

"No! _No no no!_ Please _stop!_ " He shouts incoherently, terrified out of his mind, legs beginning to kick ineffectively as he grapples at the empty air behind his head. " _I don't wanna go back there! I can't! Help,_ please _, help I can't do this please stop please-_ "

 

Danny abruptly jerks to the side and falls onto his hip with a strangled cry. When he forces his pain-closed eyes back open, he realizes where he is, and begins scrambling across the floor just inches away from swirling green to the lever controlling the opening mechanism of the portal. His vision blurs with pained tears as his hand brushes against the lever, trembling in a way that makes him distantly aware that he's not thinking straight, this isn't going to work, why close the portal when the ghost is already here, what good will that do, come on come _on come on -  
_

 

_"...ssssss....ghk......"_

 

"Ho'y fuck -" Danny whisper-screams to himself as he feels his hand brush against the lever -

 

His foot is grabbed by something cold, amorphous, then his entire leg is enveloped in less than a heartbeat, and he's suddenly finding himself wretched into the air and tossed across the lab with a pressure trying to insert itself into his ears. He crashes into a shelf and knocks every bit of glass off of it, some beakers breaking and scattering debris. He vividly feels it when several shards of glass cut into the juncture between his shoulder and neck, and something filmy sticks to his forehead. He brings a hand up to touch it while sprawled on the floor. It's blood mixed with what he can only assume was an ecto-sample that he'd shattered. The cut it came from burns.

 

There's a distant, cruel laugh that echoes unnaturally – _supernaturally -_ on the walls inside his head.

 

Danny rolls over onto his chest, breathless, as he slides through the detritus, dragging his body with his arms until his legs decide to work again and help things along. Glass must be digging into his hands and knees, but he doesn't care about that right now. No - right now he's pitching himself forward desperately to his feet as cold wind slides against him. It pulls towards the swirling glow, ushering him inside, so he claws at the chrome walls with blood-slick fingers that begin to sting and split so badly, he can barely feel what he's grappling with.

 

Resisting the strange wind, he staggers to the door. It takes a few tries to get the scanner to accept his eye map. Then he struggles to input the six-digit code while getting a worrying amount of blood everywhere. Something cuts into his ankle and he does a panicked jig trying to get it off, and the otherworldly laugh sounds again, much too close this time.

 

**ACCESS DENIED. FULL LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL IN EFFECT.**

 

Danny nearly sobs in dismay, body being buffeted to the side as his already injured hip bangs against the wall and he falls down haphazardly. He doesn't know how to override this code!

 

 _Tucker_ , he begs desperately with his mind, _Tucker would know how._

 

_Tucker isn't here._

 

Something brushes against his throat. He stiffens, and the wind picks up, throwing small particles of glass and papers around. He wants to close his eyes, to pretend this isn't happening, pretend like maybe he can come up with answers or a plan within only a few seconds of darkness, but he fears that if he does -

 

Debris clips his eye, and he automatically closes them.

 

That small touch on his throat turns into a vice that encircles his neck and cuts off airflow with one squeeze.

 

Danny heroically mouths the word "SHIT" and struggles violently as he's slowly lifted into the air. The vision around him shimmers, and at first he thinks he's become overwhelmed with tears mixed with blood, but then he realizes he can make out the vague outline of something globous and glowing. A dripping arm that is stretched forward to attach to his crushed throat.

 

 _So soft_ , he _swears_ he hears it moan, _so fragile, a human._

 

Danny's losing consciousness quickly. He's never realized how fast it would happen because the movies and cartoons always gave the protagonist so long to get out of traps, so long to think of a plan, so long to kick inefficiently at the weird blob thing slowly suffocating them in their own basement while their entire family sleeps on, unawares upstairs, oh _god_ he's going blind, there's spots in his vision, pressure all down his throat like he's swallowed his own tongue and it's killing him, it's killing him, it's killing him!

 

An oxygen deprived brain kicks into overdrive and sending parting desperate thoughts. _This isn't real! This can't be happening! Please, save me, I don't want to die! I must be dead already - I can't feel…_

 

There's a flash of white light. Danny's futilely flailing limbs make contact with the ghost. It drops him, staggering back in some emotion Danny can't read because he's too busy gasping on the floor, confused as to how he's suddenly dressed in the full-tightness of his hazmat suit. When some of the confusion abates, it's swiftly replaced by a different kind of fear.

 

It's happening again.

 

He stops breathing in a move reminiscent of self-choking, but then quickly begins to cough and gasp again, throat overworked from his previous strangling. Despite literally everything that just happened, he feels somehow less pained than he was a second ago. Wonder why that is.

 

Danny becomes aware of something in the corner of his vision, and he nearly jumps upwards in effort to no longer be rolling on the floor as what he can only understand to be a ghost, _the_ ghost, hovers in the corner of the room, illuminating green on green. The air feels stifled with tension as they stare each other down. He finds himself gazing wildly into black holes of a melting, general area of where a face would be on a humanoid being.

 

In Danny's head, there's a war raging. Outside, however, he sets a steely, somewhat deranged look on the ghost that had previously tried to drag him into the still open Ghost Portal like some kind of meat popsicle it wanted to eat on the go. Which is unacceptable. And probably some kind of waking nightmare, but he's already decided not to pin things as 'not real' until the thing has stopped happening and he's no longer in danger of falling through floors or being sliced by glass.

 

" _Homaj, aŭ, kion ajn vi estas..._ " the ghost speaks in a familiar echoing voice, further fanning the flames of Danny's warring state, " _Kion vi scias pri vi mem?_ "

 

Danny only stares unnervingly. He has no idea what it said, and he's afraid to move lest he spurn it into action. The ghost shifts, dripping ectoplasm that hisses and dissolves without a trace, which in Danny's experience, is not normal behavior for ectoplasm, but now really isn't the time to digress like that.

 

" _Dura amaso..._ " it says in a distinctly nervous voice.

 

This is true comedy right now.

 

Danny ignores the odd language, making the executive decision to shamble over to the emergency switch on the wall next to the door's keypad. Flipping it will sound an alarm; his parents will come running.

 

But then he halts, mind grappling with its irrational state. He looks down at his… _body._

 

What would his parents do if they saw a ghost and a ghost-looking boy (who is definitely not their son because their son is totally asleep in bed and safe and fully alive and stuff) in the lab? Being mistakenly body slammed by his parents is _not_ on the top of his to-do list. That spot would be reserved for Getting Out Of This Shit Alive.

 

The actual ghost wavers visibly. It becomes so transparent that Danny can barely see it, and so he startles badly once he realizes that odd mirage-like quality of the air slowly moving towards him is probably the ghost.

 

He freaks. "Stop!" His shout comes out as demanding, but also with a sickeningly identifiable echo tainting the word. Danny swallows and puts out a hand, palm forward to further punctuate his point. "Don't move."

 

The ghost suddenly seems ten times as nervous, air wavering green, giving away its position. " _Okay, okay! Nur ne pafos min._ "

 

Danny is confused at the language it uses; some of the words sound English or Spanish, but others are like a weird mix that he'd never heard before. He makes a slightly coherent note in the back of his mind to ask Tucker later on about the unknown language.

 

"Now," he commands in his best 'I totally know what I'm doing' voice, "Go back in there." He points towards the Ghost Portal, hoping this would work. If not, he's pulling the emergency switch, Mom leaping upon him like a lion on a gazelle and tearing him apart as the consequences be damned.

 

The ghost nods the equivalent of its head and starts to drift towards the open portal. Danny follows it with his palm still raised, acting as a barrier between himself and the ghost. In some weird turn of events, the manifestation of ectoplasm seems more ill at ease when his palm is up, so he elects to keep it there until it is gone.

 

Unless this is some kind of elaborate 'fuck off' gesture and ghosts are all very high-society about things like the middle finger, Danny's willing to bet it's a legitimate warding off sign, or something of that nature. Good to know.

 

The air in front of the portal wavers. The ghost speaks again. " _Mi kredas ke mi konas iun kiel vi. Lia nomo estas..._ Plasmius," the ectoplasmic being shimmers in and out of focus at the word 'Plasmius', leading Danny to believe that it might be a place, important object, or other being. He tries to commit it to memory. " _Sed li estas malbona novaĵo. Ne diru mi ne avertis vin. Adiaŭ._ "

 

And with that unknown parting statement, it's finally gone, melting into the swirling light. The lab seems warmer than it was before, and the force making Danny's ears pop retreats so suddenly that he begins to wonder, once again, if it had ever really been there at all.

 

Using his already outstretched hand, Danny practically throws himself onto the portal's lever, shutting it with the loudest noise possible in the now quiet lab. Peeing has got _nothing_ on this shit.

 

The alarms blare with sudden volume, causing Danny to jump about ten feet in the air in surprise. He waits for the falling sensation accompanying his supposed-to-be impossible height, then stares down in shock at the sight.

 

He's hovering. In the air. No falling is occurring.

 

...His legs are gone.

 

Danny makes some noise that sounds almost exactly like that video of a seal he saw the other day, and abruptly finds gravity reasserting itself when he falls to the floor with a flash of bright white light ( _bloodless, formless, breathless, lifeless_ ) as his body settles back into his sweaty, bloodied night clothes.

 

What the fuuuuuuuuuuck.

 

He reels from the amount of pain his body is in post-adrenaline rush when he tries to sit up. His throat feels like it's been through a shredder, his left leg feels either broken or _torn off_ ( _two legs, two arms, one heart no longer exists_ ) and his head splits open with an ache he's never felt before. He's pretty sure there's thousands of tiny glass shards in his knees and elbows and the thought alone causes him to move as little as possible, just imagining them grinding against each other and opening his wounds further and further. A few thin locks of hair drift to the floor as a trail of blood makes its way down his forehead and threatens to drip into his eye. Something sticky sits near the corner of his mouth and nearly spills over, but he bites his lips together to prevent himself from screaming.

 

There's a three-second interval beeping coming from the second level door before two adults burst in with their built-in ray guns already charged and out.

 

Unsurprisingly, not a whole lot of action is to be seen. It's just Danny, on the floor, bleeding and collapsed, blinking like the world has yet to reassert its boundaries and he's waiting on a bench for the bus to come by.

 

"Danny! What in the world– how did you get down here? Both level doors are locked. What did you-" his mother cuts herself off at seeing his bruised body and broken glass blood-trail. "Danny? Oh, my gosh, were you dragged down here by a..."

 

When he tries to open his mouth to speak, blood pours from the sides. It's salty and warm and... something else, too.

 

He doesn't remember at what point he bit his tongue.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter on december 9th


	3. Second ghost attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody Danny thought was just an asshole on a speeding motorbike follows him home and teaches him a fucking lesson about telling angry cat-ghosts to 'slow down.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains the usual gore and blood but this time with some extra ecto-gore and body horror. razor sharp blades cutting into flesh, animal bites, unsanitary situations involving bodily fluids, and loss of sensation and control.

 

There's a distant noise, like a bike engine revving, but it sounds odd and echoing.

 

Danny and Jazz temporarily pause in their argument over the proper way to microwave leftover Spaghetti Surprise. The Surprise part being the un-confirmed existence of ectoplasm in the meal, thanks to their mother making it.

 

"Does that sound funny to you?" Jazz steals the question from his brain. They both look around their family kitchen as if it would provide answers. She peeks out the doorway to view the street from the living room window.

 

The gurgling bike becomes clearer. It sounds like it's getting closer, but at the same time, farther away with its echoing quality.

 

No.

 

The sensation of ice pushing up from his lungs, somewhere deeper than that even, clouds his vision in a puff of visible air.

 

_No._

 

Danny doesn't feel ready for this. He's _never_ ready for ghosts, especially not at the rate that he'd been encountering ( _and fighting_ , his mind supplies unhelpfully) these past few weeks.

 

"We should call mom and dad!" Jazz near-shouts over the sound of-

 

An unknown animal shrieking directly outside of the open living room window.

_"HAŬTO SAKO!"_

 

Somebody whimpers in fear. Danny can't tell which one of them did it. He drops the carton of their dinner to the floor as his eyes dart wildly around, looking for a way out, or maybe a way to hide, to transform, or maybe just hide-

 

" _ELVENU KAJ LUDU!_ "

 

There's a bout of maniacal laughter that moves through the house like a sticky wave. A green light fills the first floor. Jazz's hand claws at Danny's shoulder as if she's just now realizing it is time to run.

 

But the ghost is already inside.

 

"To the lab," Danny gasps out, already turning at a run, but Jazz's tight grip stops him and nearly drags him from his feet as she attempts to pull him towards the back door in the same movement. "Jazz, stop! If I can just turn on the house's Specter Defense System, then -" Several things from the counters fall to the floor, and the green seeps through the walls.

 

The ghost is getting closer.

 

"Just, just- Go outside!" Danny tries to tell his sister, but she shakes her head and physically drags him backwards, away from the lab.

 

"No way! Mom and dad should be home any minute; I'm not letting my little brother be killed by a ghost on a motorbike because of your half-baked plans to be the hero!"

 

"No! You don't understand," he begs. A knife lifts itself from its pommel and nearly slices a lock of hair clean from his scalp. _Whoa._ "I'm faster, I can just run and turn it on, and then the ghost won't stand a chance and nobody will be chased halfway across town by a- just _let go!"_

 

Danny finally succeeds in detaching from his sister's mighty sibling grip of panic, and is already sprinting past the horrifying image of the ghost fading in through the living room wall. It looks like a cheesy horror film effect, except it's in real life, and there's nothing cheesy and everything horrific about it.

 

"Danny, _Danny_ what are you doing!?" Jazz is yelling at him, thankfully not following whether out of fear or from an uncharacteristic confidence in his own plans, as he runs out of the room, thumping down the stairs to the lab. He doesn't care – he has one destination in mind. It's his 'only' hope, as far as anybody else knows.

 

"Hello honey, I'm over here!" Danny calls with no small sense of panic. "You know I keep all of the _really dangerous knives_ down here, right? Boy, I'd sure hate it if you followed me down here instead of going literally anywhere else!" His hands shakes as he inputs the code to get into the lab, and the door makes a tremendous noise as it slides open.

 

 _"KIU ESTAS TIE!"_ _Fuck this is terrifying and I'm gonna die. "HAŬTO SAKO?"_

 

Danny can practically feel the ghost following him down the lab steps as he frantically searches for a weapon. The place looks deceptively emptier than usual, most likely due to his parents hurriedly leaving and taking all experimental weapons to test on the field, but Danny knows better. There's _always_ some sort of hidden defense system _somewhere,_ even if it isn't the main one he's pretty sure doesn't fully exist yet considering the whole 'real actual ghosts attacking' thing is relatively new.

 

No thanks to him.

 

_"VI FLARAS AMUZA!"  
_

 

An alarm blares to his left. He shouts and jumps a few feet into the air. It's the failed prototype of the Fenton Defense- _whatchyamacallit._

 

"Oh, _now_ you work!?" He yells at an inanimate object that does nothing to help him right now except cause him to stall in the whole Save My Sister's Life action sequence, right before a steel disk is impeded into the wall beside him with a shower of sparks and a piercing, grating _thunk._ He jumps sideways from the thrown weapon even though it had already cleared him, slashing a bloody line down the side of his face and leaving slight burn marks where the immense amount of close-proximity sparks touched his skin.

 

Holy _shit._

 

He looks up from his position sprawled on the floor to see a bipedal feline looking ghost with several sharp bike wheels strapped to its back. It's grinning, feral, at the fallen human with glowing ecto-drool dripping down its furry chin.

 

" _VI FLARAS BONA!_ "

 

"Holy shit!" He shouts unhelpfully, scrambling up and going absolutely nowhere since he is now pinned in between the ghost and a bolted down metal table full of absolute junk.

 

"Oh, you speak English, flesh? THAT IS AMUSING! SO DO I!" It shouts right back at him, which would be insulting if it didn't make Danny want to pee his pants, as it smoothly draws another sharp wheel from its back, which, as per usual, has no basis in the realms of reliable physics whatsoever.

 

Desperate and backed into a corner, Danny still pats at his chest and face as if looking for something instead of trying to find a way out of this that isn't contrived on glowing green dreams and hallucinations involving a skin-tight hazmat suit and creative eye contacts.

 

He sure wishes he could GO GHOST or something right now.

 

He hears a faint cry of _"Danny!"_ somewhere above him, but it doesn't come fast enough.

 

Would REALLY be helpful and stuff.

 

The feline ghost bends its arm back and sideways, hurling the blade free with a speed almost impossible to follow.

 

Danny only has time to flinch and close his eyes before a blinding light flashes. There is a hiss and a yowl, the noise of metal clattering to the floor and possibly breaking prototype inventions reaching his ears, but nothing about his body indicates that he's just been severed by one of the world's worst bike wheels jauntily tossed by Khajit Has Wares If You Have Coin.

 

His eyes slowly creep open, barely daring to look in fear of a gory mess; in fear of feeling like being inside the portal again.

 

Nothing beyond the injuries he already possesses, which are on his face and can't be seen unless he makes his eyeballs do something acrobatic and literally insane.

 

Am I dead, he asks himself, once again patting his chest with now-gloved hands. Yes, his mind whispers sarcastically, and it is a good thing.

 

A good thing to be magically cosplaying a fucking ghost whenever I'm seconds from death, he rationalizes.

 

He looks down at his chest. His slightly translucent chest with a steel wheel just, plum sticking out of it.

He doesn't scream, for once, instead he only lets out a weak-sounding hiss of breath that rivals the call of a dying bird, falling sideways with alarm. He watches in amazement as the wheel flows _through_ his torso and then his arm, his body never once giving him the impression that he is touching anything of a solid nature, much less something lodged in between his ribs. A few seconds after, his body is no longer looking slightly see-through.

 

Fucking superb and all, but he's got a ghost to catch and toss back into Ghost Town Jail.

 

It's the Ghost Portal he's talking about; he has no idea what goes on in there, but he imagines there wouldn't be a ghost jail. How stupid would that be? Why did he just shiver like somebody was talking about him-

 

"NO!" It yowls from its position crouching next to a sliced up bit of no-longer-a-viable-prototype, "NO! YOU THING! HYBRID! DIRTY _HALFA_ SHIT!"

 

Wow, that is _not_ what Danny is expecting a ghost to say to him. "Excuse me? Do you wanna get blasted from Earth back down to Hell or something? I am not half a shit!"

 

Instead of reaching for a gun on one of the cluttered counter spaces or table, Danny slashes one arm out and points it down at the seemingly immobile hissing ghost. He becomes incredibly concerned when his hand begins to emit green vapor, but there's just something about not having a functioning neural system that makes it way more tolerable.

 

A green plasma ball shoots out of his hand with barely a warning, the high whining of its ecto-energy following it as it travels across the room and slams into the ghost, too slow to dodge, causing a small explosion and leaving black marks on the metal from the heat.

 

It screams in agony, stumbling from the cabinet with its arm and half of its face missing. Ectoplasm drips, viscous and wholly unnatural, to the floor in hissing sheets.

 

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" It shouts as it knocks a _bolted-down_ table to its side, uprooting some of the metal tiles that make up the floor. Stupidly, Danny slaps his hands to his mouth to cover up a gasp at the expensive, oh-shit-my-parents-will-kill-me property damage. "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO MAINTAIN THIS FORM!? HOW MANY YEARS OF ECTO-CONSUMPTION I WENT THROUGH!? IT WASN'T ENOUGH THAT YOU HAD TO TELL ME, _ME!_ TO SLOW DOWN JUST AS SOON AS I'D GOTTEN MY FREEDOM ON THE STREETS, WAS IT!?"

 

"I thought you were just an asshole speeding on a bike- " A bike wheel with more spikes than legally allowed is thrown at him, and he, too, is slow to dodge. It cuts into the meat of his thigh. In a detached sort of way, he shakes it and dances backwards until the metal dislodges with a squelch and his back hits the wall. It's getting harder to breathe all of a sudden. "Who was a furry or something, god, I don't know, shit -"

 

Danny uses what's left of his strength to rocket himself off of the wall and bolt away from the limping enemy, grabbing a small but still conveniently visible cube-like invention on his way out of the lab.

This had better fucking do something, literally anything. He curses in his head and out loud as he can't find a proper button to turn it on, whatever 'it' even is. The stairs cause him trouble until suddenly, his left leg is floating, but his right leg is still moving him upwards at a speed he would be able to use had his left not been injured. He doesn't question it, stumbling into the living room with all the finesse of a shot deer on the run.

 

" **C̷O͏͞M͏E ̨̨͘B͞AC͞͝K̷̡ ̢͝H͢͠E͜R͞E!** "

 

Danny yelps at the increased pressure inserting itself into his head. It feels like the previous lab ghost trying to toss him around with wind again, but instead this time there is a loud, piercing noise in his head that won't go away. A white flash of light heralding his return to squishy humanity sends him sprawling to the floor, the carpet dragging his cheek down in heated flames, the fibers tickling the sensitive and soft jelly-flesh of his exposed eyeballs, causing him to tear up.

 

It takes him a few seconds of blind panic to realize that the phone is ringing. At the same moment, he realizes that the fabric of his jeans is sticking into his gaping thigh wound. This day just keeps getting better.

 

Danny takes great lengths to crawl his way to the side table and answer the phone, because _what the hey_ , he's practically right next to the silly damned thing. He's also secretly hoping it's his parents.

 

"Can I get a gun to go please?" He's breathing ragged and can barely hear through his pumping blood and increased supernatural head pressure. He has _got_ to figure out what makes those two malevolent ghosts have 'special abilities' like wind or… headaches? _Whatever._ "Extra anti-ghost bullets?" _  
_

 

"Excuse me."

 

"Oh, hi there," Danny pulls the phone away long enough to look at the caller ID, an action he should've taken beforehand, "Vlad, random person my parents keep calling. Listen, I'm kind of busy right now-"

 

" **W̨͘H͝Ę͞RE̛̕ ͢A̧͜RȨ͢ ̵YO̴̧U̡,͏ ̴̨S͡K͞I̴N̢ F͢ILT̕H͟͢͏?** " Another notch on the pressure scale.

 

"-so maybe you can call back later?"

 

"What is that shouting? Are you alright?"

 

Danny looks behind him. The green glow is creeping closer and the headache he is developing is encroaching on all of his senses.

 

" **Y҉͢҉O̷͡U̷͝ ̛̛S̢M͏Ę͟͠L͢͟L F͘͞ƯNN҉̴̴Y̡ -͞͡ Y̸OU ͞C͘͢͝A̛N̶̨'͞T̵ ͘HIDE҉!** " His head is going to burst.

 

"Oh, you know, nothing much, just having a ghost attack. Man, this thing is seriously like, super lost? It keeps going to the kitchen even though I'm literally _right here-"_

 

"Ghost attack!?"

 

"Yeah, real spooky. So, um, hey quick qesh-"

 

A loud crash comes from the kitchen. What is _with_ this ghost? All it has to do is turn its head, and it'd see Danny crouching on the floor holding onto the home phone like it's a precious mineral he's planning on using to propose some day, but instead it's sniffing at the fallen spaghetti on the linoleum and licking its lips. It keeps stopping in its rampage to do this, over and over.

 

Danny thinks it may want to take a bite, but won't for some contrived reason he doesn't care about.

 

Ghosts are fucking weird.

 

"-have my parents ever described how to operate a small, metal cube invention to you, by any chance?"

 

" **C̨̛OM̸͝E ͠OU̸͘͝Ţ ͢͞A̛͡N̷͞D ̶̢P͜͝L̕AY̡͝͠ ̶A҉̡L̛R͏E͞҉̶A̛͘D͡Y̴͝!** " It looks around squintily before licking the floor spaghetti. Danny resists the instinctual urge he has as a human to spray a dumb cat with a water bottle, which is absolutely amazing, because he's never had a cat and he doesn't own a spraying bottle.

 

"Because it's kind of my only hope right now and if not then I need to hang up and go die."

 

Another crash, this time with a yowl of pain and a curse in that weird, English/Spanish/German language. The ghost slipped on the spaghetti and has fallen to the floor, phasing through slightly, twisting around and around like it's in water before righting itself and looking at the pasta in gut-wretching betrayal.

 

Dumb _cat._

 

"Listen carefully – you sound like you have no time to spare. There is a small corner of the cube that is a slightly different shade than the rest. You must dig your fingernail underneath it; it will activate within ten seconds. It acts as a trapping grenade, so toss it directly and surely at the ghost. Do you understand?"

 

"Yup, great, thanks, I gotta go though sorry we've never talked before b-" the phone's cradle is crushed with a big glowing paw, effectively ending the call. He can't hold back a choked scream at the gooey, angry green face that towers threateningly over his shoulder. Some of the ectoplasm drips onto his stomach, burning through the shirt and eating away at his human flesh.

 

He hadn't even heard it coming. There's red around its muzzle that registers as _blood_ in his mind, but is actually spaghetti.

 

Within only a moment, it truly is blood on its muzzle, the one that is open and gaping and digging its teeth right into Danny's shoulder and neck. The ghost's remaining arm swoops underneath them and digs its claws into his thigh, yanking the slash open further. Blood pools onto his folded stomach, mixing with the ectoplasm.

 

Teeth gouge. Tears swim.  A boy screams.

 

Danny digs what is left of his bitten fingernails into the weirdest colored corner of the device clutched in his hand, causing a well of blood to emerge from under his abused nail.

 

He shoves the cube up into the ghosts's throat, and it gives, almost as if it is flesh, but not really, because it encompasses his hand like static made physical, and he abruptly cannot let go because he no longer has control over that limb. Danny's mouth is wide open and he doesn't know when it got that way, when the ghost's teeth tightened so impossibly into his shoulder until he finally understands the feeling of what the _bullet grazed bone_ is like, a grinding hot pulse settling right at the juncture between his shoulder and neck and veins, with tears and drool spilling down his face, mixing damn near poetically with the blood-and-ectoplasm soup cradled on the burnt skin of his stomach, shirt ruined.

 

Something inside of him begs his sister to come back and save him.

 

It's a long ten seconds.

 

The cube sinks into the beast's festering ectoplasmic skin and dissolves, taking his hand's final sensations with it. It screeches in dismay as a contained but powerful puff of air explodes from its throat, its jaw blasting apart into glowing goo that has no permanence. A green light encases it in a cube-like structure within a blink of an eye.

 

The glowing and deadly influence from the powerful, teeming ghost fades from around the house, as does the sharp noise and nearly debilitating headache.

 

Danny has successfully caught the ghost. And nobody died (permanently.)

 

...

 

... ...

 

When the fuck is the victory knell supposed to settle in? Is he going to have to do it by himself or something? Nobody tells you that, when becoming a hero, an epic music score does not accompany your every action, and winning feels a lot like losing, and boy, is he _ever_ familiar with losing.

 

Danny collapses onto the floor in exhaustion. He looks over at the trapped ghost, examining the pulsating force-field with curious but delirious eyes.

 

The ectoplasmic horror stares back at him with one wild eye rolling in its crushed and partially formed head.

 

"Yea, whatever buddy. You brought this on yourself. Just be lucky I didn't have any more of those ecto-ball-things up my sleeve when I needed them." He coughs deeply, weakly ghosting a numb hand (oh hey, so his hand didn't disappear after all. That's Pretty Neat) through his sizzling wounds and leaning back against the couch. Several pieces of the broken phone rain down onto his head, but he pays them no more mind than he can offer at the moment.

 

His parents will be home soon. Jazz will come back inside. Vlad might even call again.

 

Things will be fine. For a little while longer. Until the next ghost, anyways.

 

"Fuck," he mumbles with feeling, and wishes that this was an Action/Horror novel, because this would be the part where the battered protagonist conveniently passes out and wakes up when everything really is okay again.

 

Danny doesn't feel much like a protagonist right now, though, so instead he just lays his head back against the couch and bleeds and bleeds and bleeds.

 


	4. Blood Soup and Teeth Salad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A self-proclaimed 'Lunch Lady' ghost at school has been changing the menu and replacing staff. Sam ain't having it, but in the aftermath of a wildly out of control fight is Danny, and the bits and pieces of him lying about the hallway. Unfortunately for him, it's not exactly a metaphor...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> usual warnings apply, though now with unsettling depictions of food, and unsanitary food situations including: food mixed with blood, and the uncertainty of physical or mental health. unsettling thoughts about physical trauma. mild depersonalization.

 

 

Crawling across the floor towards the back of the lunchroom where the door to the kitchen is, Danny, Tucker, and Sam manage to avoid the flying food of the artfully staged lunchroom food fight on their way there.

 

Danny somehow ends up as the conductor of the floor train, so he uses one hand to push open the door, sitting crouched to the side as his two friends crawl in front of him.

 

The feeling of safety never comes as the three stand when the door closes, the _click_ of the single exit lock sounding foreboding in the chilly silence of the kitchen.

 

"Nothing's on," Tucker points out, shivering lightly from both fear and the chill. "Now that I think about it, the lunchroom has been pretty cold lately without all of the extra stoves and slow cookers going."

 

"Hmm…" Sam hums, running a critical eye over the open area. "What did you say this 'lunch lady ghost' looked like again, Danny? Besides a lunch lady who is also a ghost."

 

Sam receives a startled shout in response, whirling around to see a bright green light seeping into the room.

 

The ghost has arrived.

 

"Hello, children," an echoing, creaking voice erupts from the malformed and rapidly stabilizing vision of green in front of them. "Are you here for lunch? You're quite naughty for not waiting in line like the rest of the students."

 

"Uh… Sure?" Tucker says uncertainty, bringing his shoulders up in a shrug.

 

"No, wait," Sam throws an arm out, stepping up to the floating ectoplasmic being with narrowed eyes. "You should be ashamed, ghost! You've ruined lunch for all of the students here. Replacing already less than enough meals with even worse ones because of your own post-mortem morals. Your antics have burdened those who cannot eat a staple diet of only vegetables. It's unhealthy for them, and causes stress on the student body!"

 

Tucker says, "Yea! We've got tests to take! My brain needs _meat!"_

 

The now completely formed lunch lady reels back as if struck, horror on its green face, "What? _What!?_ _How dare you say that to me, ill-informed husks!"_

 

A screech slices through the previously edgy silence of the room, green flames roaring to life on the stagnant gas stoves. The noises of the food-fight outside the room don't slow, meaning that hopefully no one has yet noticed the raging ghost dangerously close to half of the school body.

 

Danny finds himself wanting to hit Sam and Tucker on the backs of their heads. You don't talk back to possibly unstable ghosts like that! The fact that Danny is currently making a living out of it notwithstanding - he's got powers. He doesn't count.

 

"Sam, don't yell at a ghost and expect it to be reasonable!" Tucker yells _for_ Danny's unsaid thoughts, looking like he himself would hit Sam if he wasn't in danger of being burned alive right now.

 

"Hey – Danny said it seemed reasonable before! I thought maybe we could talk it out!" Sam tries to defend themselves, strapping their bag solidly to their shoulders and pulling out the metal bat. "And you yelled at it too. I'm just the instigator."

 

Wind – or maybe some kind of supernatural telekinesis, Danny can't tell – begins to tug at the kids, yanking objects from shelves and cupboards with frightening speed. The captured foodstuff swirls around the floating lunch ghost, creating a sort of barrier and an arsenal of throwing objects.

 

"Shit," Danny curses, burying his face into Sam's back. "Just give me one second to transform!"

 

And he does transform, startling his two friends with the bright flash of light that erupts from behind them. A white haired boy leaps into the air, catching himself in flight at the highest point.

 

"Hey, lunch lady!" Danny yells, face set in determination that Sam and Tucker balk at, "If you won't consider changing the menu, then perhaps you should send in your resignation before _I_ do it for you!"

 

A scream of outrage reverberates from the spook, followed by several items being thrown. Danny uses his new grip on basic flight to loop around and dodge them.

 

"A little consideration for those who can't fly, please!" Tucker shouts from behind him, overbalancing while trying to dodge a tossed sack of flour and falling on his butt.

 

"Whoops, sorry Tuk." Danny rubs the back of his head in guilt. For his trouble of turning around to check on his floor-bound friends, he is conked in the shoulder with a packet of frozen vegetables.

 

Danny recovers, twirling around to face the amalgamation of food. "Okay, I guess you _want_ to be fired then," he snarks, feeling the not-heat building in his right palm. Green vapor encases his lower arm as he dodges more thrown objects.

 

" _Naughty children don't deserve to choose their own calorie intake! Adults know best for a child's health!_ " The ectoplasmic horror yells, throwing grease onto one of the gas flames. It erupts into an acid-y fireball, spitting boiling green blobs onto the three children.

 

"Ugh!" Sam swipes at a few of the blobs with the anti-creep stick, sending them back into the depths of the kitchen for some poor sob to find later. "Can we hurry this up please?"

 

Danny nods, throwing his arm out palm-up to deliver a plasma ball to the angry ghost's face. "Eat your _greens_ , ghost!"

 

The lunch ghost was seemingly so enraged and unaware that the green ball of ectoplasm slams right into its eyes, sending it careening back and through the wall. The manipulated kitchenware follows its translucent descent, breaking down the door with the force of many metal, wooden, and edible objects.

 

"Oh, great," Danny groans as screams of the students in the lunchroom sound through the busted open door, "Now everyone knows there's a ghost fight going on."

 

"Dude, it'll be fine," Tucker reassures as he holds up the Fenton Thermos. "It's gotta be nearly down and out with whatever you just hit it with, so just take this and we'll be done before you know it."

 

"Yea, I guess you're right. Come on, Sam. We might need that bat some more to –"

 

Danny's interrupted when a snake-like appendage slips around his middle, squeezing tightly as he's ripped through the broken kitchen door. He yells in surprise at the speed as he's tossed across the lunchroom. He gets a bird's eye view of scrambling students and a roving green light before he's colliding with a warm body against a wall.

 

" _Oof._ " Danny bats away the sausage trail that was the nabbing and flinging culprit, sitting up from the pile of limbs he found himself in. "What…?"

 

A strangled gasp. Danny looks up into the eyes of a rapidly paling girl.

 

"G-g-ghosssst…" Paulina moans, breathless, as she passes out, falling sideways limply with rolling white eyes.

 

Still crouched across his classmate's body, Danny feels a little bit stunned. Could Paulina really not recognize Danny in this form? Could anybody?

 

"Dan- Uh, _ghost boy!_ Are you okay?" Sam and Tucker are running up to him now, both carrying Fenton weapons as the gravitational pull of the Lunch Ghost begins to pick up food trays around them, seemingly dragging them down the hallway in the direction of the retreating spirit.

 

"Um, yea – I think I am…" He floats up and off of the unconscious girl, face pensive, "Do I really not look like Danny Fenton when I'm like this? Or is it just the white hair and floating thing that's throwing people off…"

 

Sam shifts, equally as nervous as Tucker at the question. They both share a look.

 

"Well, you do look… Um…" Tucker makes some esoteric hand movements that don't provide any clarity at all.

 

Sam sighs. " _You_ look like an angry ghost boy with a broad chest and swinging fists. Danny _Fenton_ looks like a sad, tired puppy with a physically abusive home life and anorexia."

 

Tucker nods, but looks skeptical, or at least weirded out, by Sam's descriptions. "Yeah, you do look really angry whenever you're all… ghostly like this. Have you seen your eyebrows? They're, like, constantly pulled down. Are you mad or something? Is it because Sam said you look like you have anorexia -"

 

"Well, no, I just..." The half-ghost hovers, literally, in uncertainty. He looks… scary?

 

Trying to make light of the situation, fearfully aware of the enemy they had just set loose on the school, Sam tugs at Danny's white gloved hand. "Hey, at least no one will mess with you like this. You look like you're ready to kick ass and take names. Which we should be _doing_ right now..." They yank on Danny's limp hand once more.

 

A breath. The glowing, floating boy rubs his stomach where he was squeezed mercilessly by weenies just minutes before. "I guess so. Come on, team; we need to go catch that ghost before it force feeds somebody a zero calorie bar or ties everyone up to lecture about the 'obesity epidemic.'"

 

Danny flies faster than he's ever gone through the hallways, which is approximately the same as the running speed of the two humans beneath him. He finds that he has the best balance and turning control when he keeps his arms out and level with the front of his body, but the most speed when he leaves them pinned to his sides.

 

 _I can experiment some other time_ , Danny decides when he leaves his arms up front clenched in fists waiting to pummel the wayward ghost, _right now I should focus on being cautious and on guard –_

 

A meaty fist slams into his side, earning a grunt of surprise and pain from the flying teen. He spirals downwards with a yell, breaching the floor and going straight though in surprised intangibility.

 

Being underground is weird. Disorienting. But Danny quickly gets his bearings in the darkness. Flying where he's gonna guess is in the vague direction of 'up', he soon finds himself above ground once more. Danny watches in dismay as Sam beats the ghost covered in meat ineffectually with the anti-creep stick, which is honestly nothing more than a metal bat with a solidified film of what his parents _believe_ to be anti-ghost material.

 

So it's basically a stick. Sam's trying to go toe-to-toe... with a stick.

 

"I'm not fat because I eat too much snacks and processed foods!" The vegan yells, thwacking the meat-made ghost with anger, "Your view of human diets is outdated and bigoted!"

 

The meat monster howls incoherently, throwing its giant arms out and bowling Sam and Tucker to the floor. The stick rolls away into obscurity.

 

Danny rolls his shoulders, readying his fists for punching. "How about you fight me instead – the dead don't need faulty dietary advice!"

 

The ghost boy delivers a solid punch to the side of the meaty-ghost's face, knocking it to the floor and uprooting its solid flesh platform. Two glowing green feet are exposed, kicking wildly in the air.

 

 _Jackpot_ , Danny crows as he grabs the rapidly deforming ghost-tail, "Come on out of there – too much meat is bad for you. You should know; you are what you eat!"

 

With that, Danny tugs with all his might. The ghost is pulled out of their meat encasing like a fox from a hole, clawing at their collapsed meat shield with a snarling face.

 

"Wow. That was easy. Hey, Tuk, toss me the thermos, quick!" Danny calls back to the friend who is stiffly picking himself up off the floor.

 

The surprising part comes when Danny is smashed in the head with a frying pan, going down like a dead weight as he falls to the floor. The flash of white is lost to Danny's vision when he closes his eyes tight in pain.

 

 _"Danny!"_ Twin cries of distress come from behind him. He wearily pushes himself up, turning around to see his two friends encased in wiener-lines acting like sentient ropes.

 

"Ugh…" Danny groans, pain flaring from his old and new injuries, ectoplasm mixed with blood dripping from his nose and mouth. It burns the same way stomach bile would, but at the same time, it doesn't. In the messy puddle he'd face-planted into and also grew himself, one of his teeth floats, mixing in with what looks like shreds of utterly ruined salad. Kale and lettuce and little carrots, tomatoes that at first make him think of chunks of gore but are actually just a vegetable. Or a fruit. He's never really been too sure about what tomatoes are. Then again they could actually be bits of his insides and he's gone delirious with shock.

 

...but he doesn't have time to examine the differences of internal bleeding between his ghost and human forms.

 

"Come on, transform!" Danny keeps urging the coldness of his core to flood him with ghost powers once more, but he can't seem to reach it all the way. _Just a little more!_

 

He is knocked to the side with a frozen lump barreling into his stomach, pressing into his ribs and intestines in the most uncomfortable way he never knew was possible, getting thrown into the depths of the freezer they were fighting next to. Several boxes fall onto his head, earning a sarcastic 'ow' and a few impossible squawking noises from the re-animated chicken carcass.

 

Danny pukes. He doesn't have anything else to say about it other than he tries not to look at what comes up. He's afraid it'll be worse than the teeth-and-gore souporsalad he was staring at earlier like a Picasso painting.

 

He angrily kicks the clinging chicken across the metal shelves of the room, attempting to stand up without knocking anymore boxes on his head. With one sleeve, he wipes his mouth, and nearly forgets not to look.

 

"Why did the chicken cross the road," Danny grumbles in frustration as he finds himself suddenly fighting off a small poultry army, "To get to the other _side!_ " He punts a chicken directly out the open freezer door in a wonderful arc of bird-like warbling.

 

Danny hears a surprised 'ow!' and a 'is that a fucking zombie chicken?' coming from the hallway before the Fenton Thermos is bouncing around haphazardly in the doorway.

 

That's _it!_ Danny's rabid meat-beating mania must've hit Tucker, causing him to drop the thermos while he was hoisted in the air by slithering flesh snakes!

 

Danny cringes briefly while fighting his way through the poultries hobbling around, reaching for the thermos and hiding himself behind the door jamb. He briefly looks out beyond the doorway to pinpoint the main adversary's location.

 

 _One… two… three…_ "I hope you ordered soup for lunch, Lunch Ghost!" Danny shouts as he spins out into the open, flicking the switch on the open thermos to 'Catch' and pointing it at the floating specter.

 

Working like a charm, the thermos whirrs to life with a green glow, sending a spiraling blue beam towards the ghost. It screams out many meat-laden expletives as it is sucked into the tiny vacuum-like device, foodstuffs dropping from the ceiling and walls without the support of the supernatural control.

 

Two humans are also dropped to the floor, one landing unsteadily on her feet and the other on his butt for the second time that day, " _Owch!_ A little warning next time, Danny? Do I have to remind you that we can't all _fly?"_

 

Danny caps the thermos and turns to his two friends, completely blameworthy for their fall. "Whoops. Sorry, Tuk. Again."

 

There's a few minutes of silence as the three friends somewhat stoically watch the chaos of foodstuffs littering the hallway, even hearing a few screams from around the school as teacher's hoping for a quiet Monday come across sites of destroyed school property.

 

"Well, this isn't exactly the epic battlefield of my dreams…" Danny hums like somebody who's got nothing better to say, rubbing away the green and red nosebleed before someone unawares walks by and sees it.

 

He watches as Sam unknowingly rolls a now inanimate chicken body into his own gore.

 

It's so strange how he feels fine all of a sudden.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> a more casual description: all my ectoshit from old fics i've since deleted but decided to yoink the best parts of them (AKA the gore and horror, my specialty) and plonk them all into one fic. if anything looks vaguely familiar and yet infinitely more well-written, that is why. enjoi


End file.
